Day: November 29, 2013

Two tragedies, one based on Shakespeare´s tale of Roman class struggle updated to address the politics and media of our young century, the other a “monodrama” by a vicitim of childhood sexual abuse. Bionulor (Sebastian Banaszczyk, himself a professional actor) always stamps his music “100% sound recycling,” in these cases of classical instruments for the former and monologist Sylwia Oksiuta´s voice the latter.

Both albums, separately packed but released as the matching set Theatre Music, appear to feature the entire scores of their respective plays, dozens of cues as short as fifteen seconds each. Coriolanus wavers between dreamlike acoustics and cold, hard data bursts and features a fat, juicy ten-minute drone at its midst. SKAZAna is one-third the length of Coriolanus but about three times as abstract, sounding hermetically tight and secretive, perhaps a fitting soundtrack to a public confession of guilt, assault and shame. A music box theme late in the playing order strikes a poignant chord.

Played at home, Coriolanus succeeds better as a narrative with its thicker, brighter scarlet thread and recurring motifs, though both are served well when simply experineced as light shifting from one panel to the next in a stained glass window.

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Here is where I post, at a frequency of about once a week, a list of the new music that has caught my attention that week. All of the releases listed below I’ve heard for the first time this week and come recommended.

TUE 3 • 20.00 • £10 • MD
FRODE GJERSTAD / PAAL NILSSEN-LOVE / JON RUNE STRØM
Paal and Frode grew up in Stavanger and have played together since Paal was 15 years old. Their first duo recording was released earlier this year: 180 gram vinyl on the Tyyfus label from Finland. This long lasting musical partnership is augmented by the relentlessly energetic Jon Rune Strøm, one of the new leading bass voices of Norwegian jazz and improv.

FRI 6 • 20.00 • £15
MARILYN CRISPELL AND RAYMOND MACDONALD
Launching their new album, Parallel Moments, Marilyn Crispell and Raymond MacDonald’s collaborations are characterised by delicate melodies of textural intricacies and soaring passionate adventures. A rare opportunity to hear Marilyn Crispell, who has been described as “one of the greatest, most profound virtuosos of our time”, and MacDonald has been described as “Able to individuate the exact points in which bedlam and presence of mind fuse, allowing the music to reach levels of unexpected intensity enriched by beautifully resonant halos and deliberate melodic reflections.”

THU 19 + FRI 20 DEC • 20.00 • £15/ £25 (2-night pass)
SCHLIPPENBACH TRIO
Alex Von Schlippenbach’s Trio with Evan Parker and Paul Lovens brings together three of the godfathers of European free jazz. They’ve incredibly maintained momentum, integrity and a staggering level of consistency in over 40 years of playing together.

Bushman’s Revenge (Saturday and Monday) This furious-sounding Norwegian power trio — the guitarist Even Helte Hermansen, the bassist Rune Nergaard and the drummer Gard Nilssen — takes an approach to jazz-rock that owes as much to Black Sabbath as it does to Tony Williams Lifetime. The band has a convincing new album, “Thou Shalt Boogie,” that should provide fodder for these club dates, each with an opening set by Cortex, a jazz combo led by the trumpeter Thomas Johansson. Saturday at 10:30 p.m., Nublu, 62 Avenue C, between Fourth and Fifth Streets, East Village, nublu.net; $10. Monday at 11 p.m., Shrine, 2271 Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard, at 134th Street, (212) 690-7807, shrinenyc.com; no cover charge. (Chinen)

Sylvie Courvoisier Trio (Wednesday) Sylvie Courvoisier is a pianist with a precise technique but an exploratory temperament, and she should have a strong rapport with her smartly rugged rhythm team here, with Drew Gress on bass and Kenny Wollessen on drums. At 9:30 p.m., ShapeShifter Lab, 18 Whitwell Place, Park Slope, Brooklyn, shapeshifterlab.com; $15. (Chinen)

Dave Holland’s Prism (Friday and Saturday) The bassist-bandleader Dave Holland digs back into knockabout jazz-funk mode with “Prism,” his potent new album, which features a famous old colleague, the guitarist Kevin Eubanks, along with the brilliant pianist Craig Taborn and the indomitable drummer Eric Harland. And there’s every reason to believe that this engagement, which follows a long stretch on the road, will showcase the band even more emphatically. At 8:30 and 11 p.m., Birdland, 315 West 44th Street, Clinton, (212) 581-3080, birdlandjazz.com; $40, with a $10 minimum. (Chinen)

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American Modern Ensemble (Tuesday) This exceptional new-music group celebrates the coming of winter with the New York premiere of Aaron Jay Kernis’s “Pieces of Winter Sky” and the world premiere of Robert Paterson’s “CAPTCHA,” alongside Mr. Paterson’s “Winter Songs” and works by Russell Platt, Tania Leon and Steven Burke. At 8 p.m., DiMenna Center for Classical Music, 450 West 37th Street, Manhattan, americanmodernensemble.org; $10 online, $25 at the door. (Zachary Woolfe)

Ear Heart Music (Wednesday) This searching series of cross-genre collaborations continues with an evening of theatrically inclined new music featuring the formidable soprano Lucy Shelton and the Dolce Suono Ensemble. The central offering is the New York premiere of Jeremy Gill’s “Ode: A Dramatic Cantata,” but the concert also includes works by Shulamit Ran, Roussel, Messiaen and Daniel Catán. At 8 p.m., Roulette, 509 Atlantic Avenue, near Third Avenue, Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, roulette.org, (917) 267-0363; $20, $15 for students and 65+. (Woolfe)

International Contemporary Ensemble (Tuesday) The innovative ICElab series pairs composers and performers in a collaborative process that yields substantial new compositions. Here, in the first of three free concerts at Roulette in December, the musicians offer a work by the Bulgarian composer-vocalist-improviser Maria Stankova and a song cycle by Sasha Siem, a British-Norwegian composer and singer-songwriter. At 8 p.m., Roulette, 509 Atlantic Avenue, near Third Avenue, Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, (917) 267-0363, roulette.org; free. (Schweitzer)

Composer Portraits: Anna Thorvaldsdottir (Thursday) This Miller Theater series zooms in on the mesmerizing music of the Icelandic composer (who trained in San Diego) with a range of chamber works not heard before in New York and one haunting track from her arresting album “Rhizoma.” Richard Carrick conducts a roster of musicians, including the one-of-a-kind harpist Zeena Parkins, the percussionist David Shively and the new-music ensemble Either/Or. At 8 p.m., Miller Theater, Broadway at 116th Street, Morningside Heights, (212) 854-7799, millertheatre.com; $20 to $30, $18 for students and 18 and under. (da Fonseca-Wollheim)